Freed Honduran ex-president says Trump pardon ‘changed my life’
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Former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernandez was pardoned by US President Donald Trump from a 45-year prison sentence for drug trafficking.
PHOTO: REUTERS
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TEGUCIGALPA – Former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernandez thanked US President Donald Trump on Dec 3 for pardoning him from a 45-year prison sentence for drug trafficking, saying that he “changed my life”.
“You reviewed the facts, recognised the injustice, and acted with conviction. You changed my life, sir, and I will never forget it,” Mr Hernandez wrote in his reappearance on social media after leaving a US prison on Dec 1.
Mr Hernandez was granted a surprise pardon as part of Mr Trump’s push for Mr Nasry Asfura
The former president has no immediate plans to return to his country due to claimed threats to his life, his wife told AFP earlier.
“He’s not thinking about returning to public or political life, but rather a private life where we can have time as a family and return to our professions,” she said. They are both lawyers.
In his social media post, Mr Hernandez repeated his claim that he was the victim of a “set-up” by former US president Joe Biden and his vice-president Kamala Harris – echoing Mr Trump’s position on the case.
Mr Trump has used his Department of Justice to target political opponents in an unprecedented manner since taking office earlier in 2025, while pardoning a slew of political allies, supporters and others
Mr Hernandez was convicted of helping to smuggle hundreds of tonnes of cocaine into the United States starting in 2004, long before he became president.
US prosecutors charged him with using drug money to enrich himself, finance his political campaigns and commit electoral fraud in the 2013 and 2017 elections.
In March 2024, he was convicted and in June that year, sentenced to 45 years behind bars
On Dec 3, he repeated his rejection of the allegations against him.
Mr Hernandez’s pardon shook up the Honduran general election, in which the Trump-backed Asfura is trailing right-wing television presenter Salvador Nasralla by a paper-thin margin, with 80 per cent of votes counted. AFP
